


standing next to me

by turnontheghostlight



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Cuddling, M/M, Pining, ambiguously unrequited feelings, im........... tender and projecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 08:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20255392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnontheghostlight/pseuds/turnontheghostlight
Summary: Sometimes, being a werewolf sucks. Jury’s still out on whether Brian makes the whole thing more or less bearable.





	standing next to me

**Author's Note:**

> eugh okay it is 2:20 am and i just wrote the entire like second half of this slightly delirious with Sleepiness and also An Inexplicable Tenderness And Yearning So Strong It Physically Hurts so uh. i take no responsibility for any typos or inconsistencies or general mediocrity this may or may not contain DO NOT @ ME
> 
> anyways i do have like. a wholeass werewolf au i don’t know if i’ll ever write it PROPERLY and not THIS but if u wanna hear about it always feel free to hmu either @ahimbo on tumblr or @mouthfulloflime on twitter (pls let me know if you’re requesting on the latter so i know who you are, though!)
> 
> kudos + comments always greatly appreciated i have to go to bed now

The day or two before the full moon is always the worst. It’s teeth shifting and sharpening in his mouth and pricking his lip if he’s not careful and a wildness to his hair and beard that cannot, despite all his best efforts, be wrangled into looking like anything tamer than “I haven’t shaved in weeks, nor have I brushed my hair in three days”. It’s every noise being too loud, every smell too strong—which makes living in New York City _suck_, just _so much._ It’s those horrible little instincts nagging in the back of his head, when the pigeons are strutting around his feet on his way home and he fucking _salivates_, fingers twitching at his sides. It makes him irritable, and sore, and generally miserable, no matter the fact that he’s had his whole life to get used to it. He never quite does.

Brian, though, is always patient with him, even when he snaps at him when they’re trying to squeeze past each other in the too-tight apartment halls, rejects Brian’s offers of jam sessions or Mario Kart just a little too harshly, steals into his room to just sulk. Brian keeps his voice low and the many and varied scented candles scattered around the apartment unlit. Ever since he’d found out about this—about Jonah being a _werewolf_—that cold January night their freshman year of college, he’s been ceaselessly patient and kind and oh-so understanding. It makes Jonah’s stomach turn, in some strange way.

The lead-up this month is _bad_. Jonah’s doing his best to cover his mouth when he speaks to hide pointed canines an entire three days before the full moon, and strains _hard _not to take off after a squirrel that runs across his path as he’s making his way to work the next day. By the morning of the moon, he’s so aching-miserable he just wants to stay curled up in bed the entire day.

Which, apart from a few bathroom breaks and dragging trips into the kitchen for water and a snack, is exactly what he does.

Zuko scrambles bushy-tailed behind the couch when he walks into the living room to grab his phone charger, which is upsetting, but also a normal occurrence by now. Jonah mumbles an apology to him—_sorry for spooking you, buddy_—and checks that his water bowl is full before trudging back into his room.

It’s well past lunchtime when Jonah’s phone vibrates with a text from Brian. He hits pause on the weird Netflix documentary he’d been mindlessly watching to reply.

_ hey, just checking in with you _

_ you doing alright? _

_ Honestly, not really _

_ anything i can do? _

_ I don’t think so _

_ I’ve just been lying around mostly, so _

_ You know _

_ :( _

_ I’ll be fine, bri _

Jonah sets his phone down with a groan and rolls onto his back on his bed, just barely avoiding crushing his laptop beneath him. He hauls himself up just enough to close it and set it down maybe less gently than he should on the floor, then collapses back onto the mattress, letting out a long exhale. His head hurts. His teeth ache. His whole body itches.

_This fucking sucks_.

It can’t be more than an hour later—though it feel like an eternity—when Jonah hears the front door click open. He tenses for a moment—Brian shouldn’t be home for another two hours at_ least_—then hears the familiar cooing of a man who tries everyday to get his cat to love him and everyday is shunned, that high-pitched _Zuko my boy my baby boy come here Zuko aw no please Zuko come on Zuko pleeeeaaase—_

A pause, then there’s the quiet pattering of Brian’s feet down the hall, and Jonah’s door opening with a slow creak. Jonah rolls onto his side to look at Brian, standing in the doorway rocking on his heels with his brows furrowed in gentle concern.

“Hey, Jo,” he says, voice soft. Jonah appreciates that.

“Hey.” Jonah’s voice grates in his throat.

Brian crosses the room in a few careful, quiet strides, the rustle of his socked feet against the carpet faint even to Jonah’s ears. “How’re you holding up?”

“Not ideal,” Jonah admits. “S’what I get for it being so chill last month, I guess.”

Brian frowns as he sits down on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. His fingers dance along the bedsheets, all nervous energy that comes off him in sporadic little pulses. “That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“Perfectly balanced,” Jonah intones in an extremely shitty Thanos impression, “as all things should be.”

“Jesus.” Brian tosses his head in exasperation, but he’s laughing a little bit anyways. The sound soothes Jonah, though he’d never admit it. “Alright, Josh Brolin.”

Jonah grins up at him, then winces when an incisor nicks his lower lip. Brian leans in immediately, breath fanning across Jonah’s face as he bats Jonah’s hands away to inspect his teeth and barely-bloodied lip. Every wolf-ish drop of blood in Jonah’s body _screams _at him, at the proximity, at Brian’s scent washing over him, and Jonah is near-helpless with the strength of it. He squeezes his eyes shut, drawing a shaky breath.

“Fuck, you okay, Jo?” Brian sounds so _worried<_. Like he cares so much. Which he does. Because he’s Jonah’s best friend.

“No—yeah, I’m fine. Just my bones jostling around is all. You know how it is.”

“Oh.” Brian’s brow furrows. Then he says, hesitantly, “You wanna cuddle?”

Jonah thinks he might be hearing things, with how fuzzy his head feels. Except—no, yeah, he remembers. They’ve done this before. In college, mostly. It’s just faint in Jonah’s memory, blurred by the transformations immediately after.

Brian cracks the slightest of smiles, his feet bumping against the side of the mattress as he kicks them, sheepish. “I mean, I know it’s been a while, but, you know. Dogs like cuddles.”

“Fair enough.” Jonah, despite all his better judgement, scoots over to make room; Brian is sliding into his space in an instant, tucking himself neatly into the curve of Jonah’s body. It’s a very Brian thing, this. Touch is healing, the solution to most anything short of a missing limb or the plague. A bad day, a headache, a monthly transformation into a supernatural lupine creature—all can be at least partially remedied by a good cuddle session, according to Brian.

Which is all fine and good—Brian also happens to be really good at finding points of tension in Jonah’s shoulders and massaging knots out, which is a blessing Jonah doesn’t think he deserves—but _god he forgot how bad it is when the wolf’s clawing its way into his consciousness and Brian’s body is so close to his and his hair tickles his nose and _motherfucker—

“All good?” Brian asks, when Jonah is silent for a long few moments. Jonah nods, before remembering Brian’s back is to him and mumbles a gruff_ yeah_.

“You probably shouldn’t stay long,” Jonah says, even as his arms wrap around Brian and Brian wriggles cheerfully into his embrace. “I don’t know if, uh. I’m gonna be chill, this month.”

Brian twists around in his arms to look Jonah in the face. “You afraid I’m gonna wake up to the big bad wolf growling down at me?”

“Something like that.”

Brian huffs and turns back around to settle back into optimal little spoon position. “Well, don’t be. You’ve never hurt me.”

“But I could,” Jonah retorts, because it’s true. He could easily hurt Brian and not even know it until the next morning. That’s always been the worst thing—that, and, well. He’s afraid of hurting him, and of revealing too much. Human Jonah knows better than to whine and cry if Brian walks out of the room and leaves him alone, but wolf Jonah might not. And Jonah_ really _doesn’t want Brian to know that’s what he wants to do, a lot of the time.

“But you won’t,” Brian hums, and is done with the discussion.

And—_and_—human Jonah _should _know better than to push his nose into Brian’s hair, into the scent of him at Brian’s nape, and human Jonah _does _know better, but wolf Jonah, pushing through closer to the forefront of his whole being with every passing second, doesn’t know what discretion is.

Brian’s warm, and familiar, and seems to be quickly dozing off, if the slowing rhythm of his breathing—which Jonah _feels_, in his own chest—is any indication. He had a long day, no doubt, even with coming home early. He feels precious, in Jonah’s arms.

Jonah feels—a lot, all at once, besides the general discomfort of the energy of his body coiling, waiting to become something else. There’s a fierce protectiveness, primarily, burning hot under his skin, but it’s cut with an empty-warm longing, a desire that’s strong enough to make his stomach churn.

Jonah aches.

So he pushes his nose into Brian’s hair—into the scent of him, at Brian’s nape—into this mess of tawny hair and things Jonah’s never said, never can say—and breathes it in.

And he _aches_.

He’s going to nudge Brian awake, before he turns for the night, regardless of what Brian says. But for now—_god_—for now, he’s going to let himself have this.

Like a wolf’s belly in the winter, he inhales a warmth he can’t capture, and aches.

  


**Author's Note:**

> this is my second Sad Jonah fic is he okay. am i okay


End file.
